Wednesday, July 8, 2009

There are three main ways in which we can put nouns together so that one modifies the other:

1. noun + noun: a bicycle factorya war filmthe table leg.

2. noun + ’s + noun:my sister’s cara bird’s nestcow’s milk.

3. noun + preposition + noun:the top of the pagea man from Londona book on modern musica feeling of disappointment.

Unfortunately, the exact differences between the three structures are complicated and difficult to analyse – this is one of the most difficult areas of English grammar. We use the noun + ’s + noun structure to talk about parts of people’s and animals’ bodies, (e.g. an elephant’s trunk) but to talk about parts of non-living things we usually use noun + noun structure (e.g. the table leg; NOT the table’s leg.)

the top of the page (not: the page top)the back of the bus (not: the bus back)the bottom of the glass (not: the glass bottom)the end of the film (not: the film end)

There are, however, some common exceptions:

the water’s edgethe seasidethe roadsidea mountain top.

We also prefer the noun + preposition + noun structure with words that refer to units, selections and collections, like piece, slice, lump, bunch, blade, pack, herd, flock, group, and so on (e.g. a piece of paper; a bunch of flowers).

*Sechat*, your English is pretty good so go on; practice and you’ll see the improvement. If I can help you or you need something for studying English please don’t hesitate to ask me. I don’t know if you know it but there is also a Spanish version of the blog in Aprender Inglés Online.